Our experience at Roomy began quite pleasantly with what seemed to be great customer service. However, the moment that we had a problem with our furniture, Roomy always seemed so shocked and surprised because they “…had never seen anything like that before”. My husband and I bought 3 custom pieces from Roomy and spent $3400; a TV unit, a small filing cabinet, and a console table to be used as a desk (no drawers). We didn’t mind spending the money since we were getting exactly what we wanted. We have no complaints about the design of the furniture, as it was exactly as promised. Our problem was with the quality. After picking up our items and unwrapping them we noticed that the TV unit had a scratch on the side exposing the wood under the stain, bent hardware, and a knot that had fallen out and had not been glued back in. For anyone who is not an expert on wood veneer, here is a quick lesson. Good veneer doesn’t generally have knots as the wood is so thin that it would severely compromise the quality. In the event that there is a knot, a good woodworker would ensure that if it happened to fall out he would glue it back in or at least fill the gap to give the furniture a uniform look. Knots are created from branches in the tree. When the branch is cut off it leaves a ring in the wood. You can certainly specify that you are interested in clear veneer, but I assume that Roomy would have taken my other leg as payment if I had requested it. Upon contacting Roomy, Corinne (Senior Designer, Manager), she was shocked and blamed the woodworker for not inspecting the product carefully. She agreed to have the unit picked up, fixed, and returned at no extra cost. In addition, she extended a 10% refund on the TV unit for our trouble. Corinne also recommended that I take some green painters tape and mark off anything else that I see wrong with the unit so that the woodworker could fix it. We were happy with her suggestion and did as instructed. With my tape, I must have marked at least 7 other noticeable deficiencies. The biggest one was a huge finger print left in the stain on the top side of the unit. I later came to learn that the stain is sprayed on. It was sprayed so thick that the finger print left a huge dent. We had the unit refinished and returned. However, only 2 of the 7 deficiencies were actually resolved. And as for the hardware, the same cheap piece of hardware was used. It’s only a matter of time before this one bends as well. Corinne’s response was always along the lines of “…I’ll get in touch with the woodworker to see what he has to say…we’ve been using the same stain and hardware for 5 years…” To be honest, we didn’t really care about the woodworker or what they had been doing for the last 5 years. Corinne was representing Roomy and should have been assuming responsibility for our concerns. It took a while before we actually set up the desk (we had recently moved and were doing some renovations), but were faced with another “surprise”. One side of the desk happened to be sitting under the vent in our office. When we were ready to use the desk we noticed that there were a ton of marks on the top side of the desk. It had never been used and looked like the stain had melted from the heat of the vent. Please note that the heat was at 20 – 21C, not exactly hot, built into the ceiling which is 6 feet above the desk. It seemed quite odd to us, but once again spoke to the quality of the spray stain that they had been using for 5 years! At this point we were fed up and went down to the store to speak with Corinne. Once again, shocked and surprised since she had “…never heard of that happening before.” We compared our desk to one in the store and the stain wasn’t nearly as thick or glossy. Clearly, the stain on our desk was of different quality. Corinne requested that I forward her some pictures of the desk so that she could forward to the woodwork. It has been nearly a month and we’ve never heard back. Obviously every situation is unique, but take my advice and steer clear of Roomy Home. They charge A LOT of money for mediocre products and would rather make a buck than satisfy a customer. Maybe they don’t realize that bad word of mouth goes pretty far.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $3,400.00
- Company Response
We pride ourselves in providing excellent customer service and every attempt was made to resolve this clients concerns. The client was shown a sample of the stain and hardware at the time the order was placed.
Every one of our pieces is covered by our warranties however they only apply to normal residential use and care without evidence of abuse.
At our last meeting in person, this client clearly explained that she had turned on her hairdryer and held it to the desk to see if the finish would be affected by extreme temperatures.An assistant to the woodworker had been on site several weeks prior to the complaint about the desk finish and personally saw the piece unwrapped and in fine condition.
As a result, the abnormal reaction of the stain cannot be covered by our warranty.